Poetry Symbolism

Earl Simmons was born in Baltimore on December 18, 1970 and raised in Yonkers, NY as a child. His troubled and abusive childhood made him become very violent. He spent most of his childhood in group home and survived off of the streets, which led him in and out of Juvenile Detention. He found his passion in hip hop starting out as a DJ and moved his way up into rapping. After Tupac and Biggie Smalls, DMX was the next hardcore rapper. Everything about DMX was hard, from his muscular appearance, to his mean face and to his barking, made him who he was. He had an obsession with dogs, which is why he was always barking in his songs. What made him so unique was that he could go from rapping about the streets, to rapping spiritually and asking God to keep him out of the streets. "Lord Give me a Sign" was released in 2006 and I chose to write about this song because I know a lot of us can relate to it. There are situations mentioned in this song that we deal with daily and the way he asked God for help was very well put together.

Throughout this song, there are a lot of symbols and symbolic actions. Right in the introduction of the song on the third line he quotes a line from the Bible saying that, "No weapon formed against me shall prosper and every tongue that shall rise against me in judgment, thou shalt condemn." The entire introduction is actually a scripture in the Bible, Isaiah 54:17. In verse one DMX uses walk as a symbol to represent his attempt to do better. Later on in verse one on line nine, he says thats he's "soaking up trouble like rain in the dirt." In lines fourteen and fifteen DMX says "Devil I rebuke for what I go though and trying to make me do what I used to" as a symbolic action. In verse two, line eight he says that "the spoken word his stronger than the strongest man," referring to Jesus's word. There are a lot of symbols and symbolic actions throughout this song lyrics and I just named a few.

When DMX says "No weapon formed against me shall prosper and every tongue that shall rise against me in judgement thou shalt condemn," he uses weapon to represent any and everything that is negative towards him. The denotation of weapon is any instrument or deice for use in attack or defense in combat, fighting or war as a sword, rifle or canon. He also uses tongue as a symbol to represent the speech that comes from human mouths. The denotation of tongue is the faculty or power of speech. As DMX talks to the Lord in verse one, he tells him that "Since the last time we talked the walk has been hard." He uses walk to represent his attempt to do better and be a better person. The denotation of walk is to advance or travel on foot at a moderate speed or pace. One of the symbols DMX used was really interesting to me. In verse two, line seven and eight he says "or hunting with the word that cuts like a sword, the spoken word is stinger than the strongest man. Word is a symbol he uses to represent the Bible or Jesus's words. He's saying that nothing can beat or go against the word of God because it is that strong.  He said that the word of God is so strong that it carries the world. You wouldn't need to need to use weapons because the Bible cuts like a sword. The denotation os word is a unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation that functions as a principle carrier of meaning.

"Lord Give me a Sign" is basically DMX's desire to walk down the right path in life. I believe guidance is the theme of the song because throughout the entire lyric of this song, DMX is asking God for help. In the first verse, he's asking God to give him a sign as to what to do because the walk has been hard and he doesn't know what to do. As he's talking to God he's also letting him know that he feels alone and he's hurting. DMX also mentioned thats he is soaking up trouble like rain in the dirt and when he said that, it made me think about his childhood and how he was always getting in trouble. Maybe DMX is begging God for guidance because he doesn't want to go back to how he was in his childhood years, he wants to be a changed man. Aside from guidance I think trust was also big in this song. He kept saying that he won't let the Devil take him back to the things that he used to do and as long as the Lord is in his life, then he won't have any fear. In verse two he talks about how through the trials and tribulations, Jesus is still here with him. This song is mainly about asking for guidance and trusting that the Lord will guide you.

Biography information: Wikipedia.com
Definitions: Dictionary.com